Interview: Eliza And The Bear Talk To TFFT

Slap bang in the middle of their biggest headline tour to date, Eliza And The Bear spoke to TFFT, following their glorious headline show at O2 Academy Oxford – 20 months since they graced Thank Folk For That Live with their presence in a sold-out, little room at The Castle Hotel, Manchester – and we were very keen to catch up with the London five-piece and see how they’re enjoying their rise to stardom…

For those out there who are just discovering more about the band and your music, wouldyou be able to describe the band in a sentence – who are Eliza And The Bear?

Five guys playing tunes with the absence of an Eliza or a Bear

A lot of people are intrigued by the band’s name, is there a story behind it?

It actually comes from a book of poems. We messaged the author when we saw the name
and asked her if we could use it. She agreed and the name stuck! Not the the craziest of stories…

There are very fun aspects to your music that draws people in right away, what wouldyou cite as the biggest influences on your music?

We all draw different influences from things. I think a lot of us are quite into our pop
music which brings out the upbeat and fun side to our music.

As a collective, are your individual musical and artistic influences different and howmuch of that individuality is expressed in your music?

In terms of music influences it does vary from member to member. We’ve got Chris who
is quite into his punk music and Paul who enjoys Queen and Bon Jovi.
How this all comes together i’m not to sure?!
We just write music that we enjoy hearing and if other people enjoy it to then great!

The Light It Up EP has received a lot of incredible support over the summer;
has that fully sunk in yet?

Just about! We’ve been playing some tracks from the EP live and we are noticing an
amazing response to the tunes. Makes playing live so easy!

Although it was some time ago, one of your first Manchester gigs was at a TFFT Livenight, how much has your performance and confidence as a band changed since then?

I think we have definitely grown in confidence since then, especially this year.
The shows this year have caused that due to the fact that we have had a noticeable rise in
people coming along to shows and singing along.

Your performances are full of great energy and intensity, would you say that a strongstage presence is something you’ve always been big on as a band?

We were all in bands that have always prided ourselves on a stage presence. As we have
come together that has continued. Weirdly we don’t really talk about it or plan it, its just
something that happens naturally when we play the songs.

You’re about a half of the way through your headline tour, how’s life on the road?

So far its been really enjoyable! All the shows have been amazing so far and hopefully
that continues. We’re all pretty close as friends so it makes it that much easier being on the road together.

You’ve also been working on a debut album, what sort of sound should fans beexpecting from the new release?

I think that there are some songs that are going to offer something different.
There’s a couple of slower songs which is something that we haven’t released before so we are
really excited to get them heard!